I'm debating on these two for the mere fact I want something portable, long battery life along with Cowon BBE and 5 band eq. Only be playing FLAC and MP3. Mostly when I work out and on plane trips. I will want to add a 32 or 64gig card as well.

Ah, I didn't even look at that. Crap. I need storage and small size with battery life. Any other ideas?

1 - Look at either "Clip +" or the "Clip Zip," which are low cost, sound very good and have expansion slot that takes up to a 32GB microSDHC card and while the standard has not changed you can also format a 64GB microSDXC card to FAT32 and that will work as well.

2 - Look at the Cowon J3, I'd love one myself as I'm a big fan of BBE and all the other sound enhancement features

Edit: the J3 has up to 32GB onboard memory and can use the same cards mentioned above.

If I rockbox a Sansa Clip+ or Zip can it still be customizable as a cowon for EQ?

They're different although you still get very customizable sound settings and you possibly could get close sound enhancement (similar sounding) with either. Rockbox has these sound settings and cowon's have the jeteffect sound settings

1. The Clip+ is a brilliant little player but its battery life is limited because of its small size. The Fuze (discontinued) is a bit bigger and runs longer, if you can find one. The newer Fuze+ is totally different and should be avoided.

2. None of the Sansa players have BBE/BBE+. Their built in equalizer function isn't so great either, but if you install Rockbox you get good equalization.

3. As others have said, the i9 and i10 are not expandable. The c2 may be your best bet if you want a new small expandable Cowon player. The j3 is fancier than the c2 but it's bigger and costs more. The j3 is supposedly a great player and a considerable improvement on the d2/c2/s9. I haven't tried one myself yet but it does sound nice. I'd still consider it.